Hello... from the west coast..

Meanwhile, back on Earth
Vancouver, BC to be specific

This winter we had record snow falls about 3X the average and have had
heavy rain for a looong time

A lot of the Lower Mainland areas that are at low elevations (including
the 'burbs where I live) are preparing for flood conditions.

Its not just the water damage but its also the pollution and health and
safety concerns for people and animals.

We should expect the worst toward the third week of May.

I've been involved in the committee of volunteers organizing efforts.

*sigh*

And in expanding our perspective even further - how about "Life on Other
Planets"
Wednesday's news, but worth reading.



Debating whether suns other than our own have planets has always been
like debating whether cats other than your own have kittens. The answer
is self-evidently yes.

All stars form more or less the same way after all — coalescing out of
the same celestial gas and often leaving a dusting of the stuff behind
that can, in turn, coalesce into planets. All stars can additionally
snag passing bodies in their gravitational lasso, conscripting new
worlds to add to the home-grown litter. So it was no surprise in the
early 1990s when astronomers began detecting these so-called extrasolar
planets circling distant suns, and it's no surprise that in the years
since they've spotted more than 220 of them. But the latest one added to
the list is by far the best.

On Tuesday, a team of European astronomers announced that they had not
only found a new planet circling a comparatively nearby star in the
constellation Libra, but that that planet is unexpectedly Earth-like.
Like Earth, it orbits a comfortable distance from its sun; like Earth,
it maintains a surface temperature somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees
Fahrenheit. Most importantly, like Earth, it could easily harbor surface
water. In the biological arithmetic we know best, warmth and water often
equal life.

For all its terrestrial feel, the new planet — unpoetically dubbed
Gliese 581c — has a decidedly extraterrestrial look. It is probably more
than 1.5 times the diameter of Earth and five times heavier. But unlike
our world, which orbits a comfortable 92.9 million miles from the flames
of the sun, 581c hovers just 7 million miles from its home star. What
prevents it from being incinerated like a match head is that its star is
a red dwarf, only about one one-hundredth as bright as the sun. The dim
light coupled with the planet's close proximity places it in what
astronomers call the habitable zone: the spot at which temperatures
remain comfortable and water can remain liquid. All this has led to a
fair amount of astronomical hyperventilating. "On the treasure map of
the universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X," said
Xavier Delfosse, an astronomer with Grenoble University in France and
one of the planet's co-discoverers. Dmitri Sasselov of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, went further, enthusing to
The New York Times, "It's 20 light-years [away]. We can go there."
(Sasselov did not make it clear just how we'd make that 120 trillion
mile trip when it still takes us eight months to cover the 35 million
miles to Mars.)

Even if we could visit 581c, there would be reasons to wait a bit before
we light the rockets. For one thing, just because the planet could have
liquid water doesn't mean it does. The body was detected like all
extrasolar planets initially are, not by direct observation, but by
measuring the infinitesimal gravitational wobble it causes in its home
star. We won't get a clearer sense of its makeup until its orbit carries
it in front of the star and the brief interference in the wavelength and
intensity of the incoming light allows us to make some inferences about
its composition. This will also tell us if the planet has an atmosphere
and if it is thin and wispy like Mars's or suffocatingly dense like
Venus's — neither of which promises good things for the kind of life
we're most familiar with.

What's more, there are plenty of far more promising places to hunt for
life closer to home. Sunlight is not the only kind of energy that can
fire the biological furnaces; so can subsurface heat. Jupiter's icy moon
Europa is thought to have a rich, salty, globe-girdling ocean sloshing
just beneath its surface rind of water ice. Very little solar light
reaches so far into space, and even less makes it down to the dark ocean
inside Europa. But the gravitational flexing of the little world caused
by the movement of Jupiter's other moons heats up its innards the same
way a wire hanger heats up when you bend it back and forth. This is what
keeps Europa's ocean liquid, and this could could also help spark life.

Mars too could be home to similarly hearty subsurface life forms, as
could two of Jupiter's other moons, Ganymede and Callisto. If the
discovery here on Earth of tough little organisms living miles below
ground, frozen in polar ice and hanging on in the broiling waters of
deep-sea vents indicates anything, it's that biology emerges in very
improbable places. The most remarkable thing we may come to conclude
about 581c is that whatever secrets it holds may not be that remarkable
at all.

No, not shy.. guarded and reserved - you bet

Jello head?

I have a little jelly belly - is that close enough?

hola

fantasy

If you could be invisible and spy on someone for a day -who would it be
and why?


Today? Stephen Harper ~ wanna see him unkempt~ just once ....

My dear friend ~ on your special day...

And another for your guest

Thinking of you

Missed April 21

But the sentiment is still the same, gorgeous...

Safe journey..

Come back soon,y'hear

attributes....

DITTO to Native's answer

But also to "Seeking intimate encouter'

Or the use of slang terminology to describe certain female atributes ...

HEY ROB!!!


Welcome...

Hello sir

Welcome

Irisheyes

Welcome

AB

ROY!!!!!





Roxanne....

Relief pitcher ....omg..